AMO AMAS AMANT

The ruler descended at the close of  each and every  final syllable.

Amamas, amatis amant. I can still feel the smarting in my right hand.

Learning Latin a long time ago came with real time physical feedback.

Never have a use for this dead language! 

How wrong I was.

A wet cold afternoon. The remains of some American storm. Jonas?

Why can’t we have our own storms?

Almost without thinking I pull into a garden centre.

I want some Mealey worms for the birds.

£1.99/100grms thats nearly twenty quid per kilo! I must be mad.

I wander round the plastic storage boxes.

That CD storage box at £4.99 could make a three stage filter.

Or an inclined plane fines filter.

I am deliberately delaying the final moment. To heighten the pleasure.

The seed display.

I love seeds. One look at a Tumbler Fi Hybrid package and I can really see them in my garden.

My eyes are drawn to the bargain bin.

all reduced to £0.7 

Many are Italian seeds. In Italian!

Mr Murphey. Forgive me and; Thank you!

UPDATE

Overnight air temperature was, -8*C. I have a 30w aquarium heater in the sump tank. This morning the main tank thermometer was 3.4*C.

No time to look before going to work! Truth is I could not deal with it at this time of the morning.

Home around four pm.

The main tank has carp. The secondary trout. Phew! All good.

In the grow beds. Think cold frame NOT greenhouse. I have winter cabbages, beetroot, watercress, spinach and winter broad beans. Watercress looking a bit sorry for it self but all else not too bad. The winter BB were planted before Christmas and are about 15 cms tall. First time for this crop. So far. OK.

Last year has been tough. I decide to add carp. I used an online supplier.

Delivery after delivery were infected. IMHO with an existing fungal/bacteria.

They had a guarantee. So in fairness when I complained they were replaced.

I lost four months with fish dying in quarantine. I added a UV light to my Q system. Helped a bit but again IMHO did not treat the already infected fish.

Once again I went To Bibury Trout Farm. I have to say Martin the Fishery manager is great. To attempt to catch up I have overstocked the Q tank with larger trout. To cope with this I am a running a second pump on continuos flow. This pumps FT> pre-filter>bio-filter>FT The main pump is on 15/45.

Until recently I had kept the UV light on. It’s only 9W. I have now switched it off.

To return again to the carp.

The initial delivery was common carp. 50% survival. I then decided to switch to Crucian Carp. It was these that I had all the trouble with.

The fishery suggested that it was just too warm for transportation in the summer. Ice packs were included in the boxes. The October delivery 95% fatalities. At this point I gave up.

I don’t know.

I do want to stock Crucian Carp. 

NEW YEAR, NEW CROPS

Back to reality after the holidays. System and fish all good thanks to my Grandson. Winter broad beans doing well.

NEW AIR PUMP

I took advantage of a’black Friday deal’ to buy a new air pump.

Just a little surprised at the size of the new one.

The new pump is 150 L/M The old 45L/M.

The new cost less than the old!

NEW TROUT

At last the crucian carp have left the quarantine tank and joined the main tank.

I am about two months behind schedule.

Yesterday I picked up 15 trout. I followed the normal procedure. Equalized temperature by floating the bag in the new tank. Gradually introducing  water into the bag and finally they swam free.

Time for tea.

Quick check. Greeted by one trout lying on the floor, 3 meters from the tank.

Now this tank has a 2cm plastic mesh plus lid covering it. Amazing! I draped plastic bags over the edges. He went back in and seems OK.

I have nothing but praise for the people at Bibury.especially, Martin the Fishery manager.

I learn a lot in the short time whilst I collect the fish.

He showed me the eggs. The single main tube holds just under 250,000 eggs!

Cold today. no food for Carp. Trout ate settling in

, only had a had snack.

OCTOPUS CARPACCIO

Although this is an Italian dish. I first tasted it in Spain. We had caught the,”Frexisenet Express” north from Barcelaona to the village of Sant Sadurni d’ Anoia. With a couple of hours to kill before our scheduled tour of the,”Cava” Centre we wandered up into the village.

The road bollards are the shape of champagne corks. Champagne is a protected name for wine from a distinct region of France.

Or to look at another way. The French word for The Spanish Cava.

OK I am a little biased.

We stumbled upon this little restaurant.

I enjoy talking to people.

I also enjoy listening to people.

Sometimes just a few words of encouragement is all that is required.

My open smile and praise for the wonderful, octopus carpaccio we had just eaten was enough.

It would have been rude not to buy the second round of Grappa but certainly the third was not needed to pass on the recipe.

I am sure there are other recipes equally as good but this is the one he told me.

Boil the cleaned octopus for one hour.

Leave to cool in the water.

Put the octopus into a plastic bottle.

I used a cut off UK milk bottle. Depending on size.

Push, pound it down into the bottle to eliminate air pockets.

Freeze.

I don’t have the skill to carve thin slices with a sharp knife.

I used an electric slicer. Carve, slice the frozen octopus.

Add paprika, oil and salt to taste.

My wife suggested using garlic infused oil. Hm. Maybe.

BOTTLE TOPS

I have been stringing milk bottle tops onto cable ties for bio filters.

In my quarantine tank I use bottle tops scourers etc as the bio media.

Water test show low nitrite levels so I have been thinking of ways to improve the efficiency of the bio filter. I have not used k1 because with the current configuration there is a possibility that one K1 media could get into the pipe and block it.

One of those,’Doh’ moments. String the Ki on cable ties.